Austin City Limits Music Festival celebrates its 25th edition in 2026, returning to Zilker Park over the weekends of 2 to 4 October and 9 to 11 October with more than 100 artists across nine stages.

For UK business travellers with autumn trips to Texas in the diary, the timing matters. The festival falls immediately ahead of the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas, creating a fortnight when Austin’s hotels, flights and restaurants are at their busiest. Anyone travelling to the city for meetings in early October should book well in advance, while those with flexible schedules have a ready-made reason to extend a working trip into the weekend.

A festival in the middle of the city

Unlike most large-scale music events, ACL Fest takes place minutes from downtown. Zilker Park is a 350-acre green space framed by the Austin skyline and the banks of Lady Bird Lake, and is also home to Barton Springs Pool, Zilker Botanical Garden, the Austin Nature & Science Center and stretches of the 10-mile Ann & Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail. Many festival goers cycle to the site or make the 30-minute walk from the South Congress district, and services such as Waymo’s driverless cars on the Uber app now cover much of central Austin for those heading back downtown.

This year’s headliners include Charli XCX, RÜFÜS DU SOL, Lorde, Twenty One Pilots, The xx, Skrillex and Kings of Leon. The wider bill features Turnstile, The Chainsmokers, Bleachers, The War on Drugs, Blood Orange, Lykke Li, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Steve Aoki and dozens more across both weekends. Full lineup and ticket details are on the Austin City Limits Music Festival website.

Beyond the main stages

ACL Fest is one chapter in a year-round calendar that underpins Austin’s claim to be the Live Music Capital of the World. Free community concerts such as Blues on the Green sit alongside independent events including LEVITATION, Seismic Dance Event and Austin Psych Fest, while Viva La Vida Festival & Parade, Austin Celtic Festival, Urban Cultural Festival and Chingona Fest Texas celebrate the city’s cultural diversity. A full calendar is available via the Visit Austin music festivals guide.

That depth is one reason visitors on business so often extend their stays, exploring the barbecue scene, breweries and live music venues across South Congress, Red River, East Austin and Downtown. The city’s hotel pipeline is growing to match, with 1 Hotel Austin opening downtown in August 2026.

Where to stay if the music matters

Austin’s music-themed hotels keep the soundtrack going after the encore. Hotel Saint Cecilia, a 20-room estate off South Congress named after the patron saint of music, was conceived as a rock-and-roll retreat inspired by the artists of the 1960s and 1970s. Nearby on Music Lane, Hotel Magdalena occupies land once owned by Willie Nelson, who ran the Austin Opry House there in the 1970s, and now offers a vinyl-listening lounge called Equipment Room.

In the Rainey Street Historic District, Hotel Van Zandt provides in-room record players, a vinyl rental programme and live performances Thursday to Sunday at Geraldine’s, its fourth-floor venue. Downtown on Willie Nelson Boulevard, W Austin sits next door to the famed Austin City Limits venue in the Second Street District, with guitar-inspired architectural details throughout. Austin has also been praised for accessibility across its cultural spaces, a practical consideration for corporate groups.